Now if they'd just ground the rest of the FAMs, we'd all actually be a little safer and both the government and the airlines would save some money.

@TEAPOT7: I'm guessing the solar water heaters rate a "(?!)" because they are likely of limited use in a country where due to air pollution the sun rarely shines. But that's just a guess. Maybe there's still enough energy getting through that smog to heat up the water?

Favorite subject, Mark?

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/24/gallery-of-japanese-.html

Ha, baldhead. Try 6 or 7 YEARS too late. I was at the record release party for their second CD, which was released in 2002. And given that it was already their second CD, I guess that means I was a bit late to the game, too.

Perhaps somebody needs to buy baldhead one of those t-shirts with the funny Venn diagram of faulty logic?

Bottom line: if you have not already, GO SEE GOGOL BORDELLO LIVE! Honestly, what other band has dancing girls who sometimes come out dressed as border patrol and proceed to hog tie the lead singer with his own microphone cord?

It's hard to beat the law firm anthem "Everyone's a Winner at Nixon Peabody" (mp3)

And then there are the various Wal Mart annual meeting musicals and whatnot.

I have a friend who's made these for her last couple Halloween parties. She has a cat, and served the cake in a real (unused) litterbox with a litter scoop for a serving utensil (also unused). She also always puts a turd on the edge of the litterbox as if the cat missed, which makes it even grosser.

The first time I saw it, I honestly thought she'd just been moving her cat's litterbox for the party and accidentally left it out. Okay, I kinda fell for it the second time, too.

But mmm... that's some good cake.

An advantage of using search terms instead of URLs is that they can be in the local language. I'm pretty sure non-Roman domain names are now available, but I think the TLDs still have to be Roman (if I'm wrong, I'm sure some happy mutant will correct me). With a search term, it can be entirely Japanese.

Couldn't you also just txt "Starbucks near [intersection] nyc" to 466453 (GOOGLE)?

I wonder if suicide robots are covered under the Old Glory robot insurance plan?

http://widgets.nbc.com/o/4727a250e66f9723/47e2c0d31a179f62

Paul, I think Git R Dun is the front and Got R Did is the back (which we can't see).

Felten is a professor of computer science and public affairs, not law (Princeton doesn't have a law school).

Some others were previously seen on boingboing, too:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/28/tombstones-of-the-ru.html

Perhaps he simply confused "Crane's Landing" for "Plane's Landing?"

I'm not gunphobic, but the idea of putting armed guards on every flight strikes me as idiotic.

We spend BILLIONS of dollars on el Teatro Seguridad de Amerika ostensibly to keep weapons OFF airplanes, then we send guns right around the metal detectors and onto planes.

Why?

Ever since 9/11 (beginning with UA93), no hijacker has been able to retain control of an airline. Not because of any help from air marshals or other armed guards, but because passengers and crew simply won't cooperate with hijackers any more. UA93 never made it to its target in DC. The guy who hijacked the Spanish plane in the Maldives got a face full of hot coffee. Richard Reid was stopped from detonating his shoes. All thanks to the heroic efforts of passengers and crew. No armed guards or air marshals needed.

Meanwhile, if you're dealing with a competent suicide bomber, a gun isn't much help ("don't kill yourself or I'll shoot you!"). And the only time I'm aware air marshals have ever acted in response to a perceived emergency, they shot to death an innocent (but very disturbed) man in Florida.

I therefore see no reason why the gov't should keep stealing seats from airlines (they don't pay the airlines for air marshals' seats, you know) so a bunch of guys (and a few gals) drawing a salary paid with my tax dollars can play more videogames on their gov't-issued PDAs as they whiz back and forth across the Atlantic in first class.

The air marshal program should not be expanded. It should be dismantled and its employees (who I'm sure are great folks) should be assigned to useful tasks that actually benefit our country.

This is about Customs, not the TSA. While random search and seizure are prohibited by the constitution domestically, at the border Customs has a lot more leeway and can pretty much do what they want.

There are quite a few stories on flyertalk of Customs detaining people and searching their laptops outside their view. It seems they're almost always looking for child porn. If your computer is password protected and you don't provide the password, they can seize the laptop (just like they could seize your suitcase if it was locked and you didn't provide a key).

Here are a few threads on the subject:
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=787096
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=719265
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=9208055

Wired did a similar article two years ago:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/spy.html

"sheik" is a title, too, no?

My grandparents-in-law have a children's textbook from the turn of the 20th century that's much worse. It breaks the peoples of the world into colors (white for European, yellow for east Asian, black for African, etc.) and compares their abilities. I believe it ranks them in terms of intelligence and ability to create civilized society.

I'll have to see if I can get a scan of it when I next visit them in April. Or at least transcribe some of the more outrageous text.

The Israelis are selling nuclear secrets to the Saudis and Pakistanis?

Is it just me or does "A Dictat on Etiquette" seem to be partially inspired by Goatse?

Any guesses as to the average ability of a TSA screener to accurately gauge what "25 grams" means?

Given that after more than a year they still haven't figured out the difference between fluid ounces and troy ounces...

Not sure if they sell them in Vatican City or not, but outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem they used to (and probably still) sell portraits of Jesus that made him look all peaceful from some angles and all bleeding-from-his-crown-of-thorns from other angles. This was achieved with Cracker Jack toy technology--I think it's called a lenticular lens, maybe? I'm sure some fellow nerd knows.

An ophthalmologist comments: "Neat, I often look right past their beauty."

Lame. Any proper display of rodent-killing devices should include at least one dead rodent on display to illustrate the devices' efficacy.

I wonder how it is known that Mr. Jobs is Disney's largest shareholder.

According to the Stock Ownership section of Disney's most recent proxy statement (available at http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1001039/000119312507006127/ddef14a.htm#toc80653_36)

"Based on a review of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Company is unaware of any holders of more than 5% of the outstanding shares of Disney common stock other than Steven P. Jobs..."

The specifics of Steve's Disney holdings are disclosed in detail at http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1001039/000119312506103741/dsc13d.htm

He owns over 138 million shares of Disney, and got most (if not all) of them when Disney bought Pixar.

Urban warfare has no place for fighter jets.

Clearly you haven't watched the end of True Lies enough times. Give the governor of California a Harrier and he'll beat the terrorists every time!

It also reminds me a little of Xeni's post from 12/15/06:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/15/clockwork-insects.html

They make heavy-duty plastic bags that are designed for storing things more compactly this way. They're great for packing a ton of clothes into a small suitcase. As long as the TSA doesn't try to open your bag (although that might be kind of funny...).

While it's probably a very bad idea for cops, it might be very useful for guarding buildings and facilities that are likely targets of suicide car/truck bombings.

A well-placed microwave at the gate of an embassy or an oil refinery could stop a suicide vehicle in its tracks.

I'm not sure how it gets much more badass than Chapter 25 of Numbers, wherein Moses's great nephew Pinchas takes a spear, follows a guy into his tent and runs through the guy and his Moabite ladyfriend as they're having sex.

The NYTimes did a story on this in 1998.

Still, I'm in the camp who believes it's in US gov't warehouse. When I visited the Smithsonian's complex in Suitland, MD (where they keep all the stuff that's not in the museums) to do research a few years ago, the archivist who showed me around let slip that they keep the ark in one of the buildings there. And we all know archivists have no sense of humor, so clearly he wasn't joking.

Ape Lad. Unfortunately there's not much to see:

http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/18050/

I'm no Bush supporter, but I have to say I'm with Vertigo25 on this one. The fact that someone once owned a plane that is used to commit a crime in no way implicates that person.

Odds seem pretty good that somewhere in the chain of title for any vintage 1970s private jet lies a big business honcho who has done some political fundraising.

All this conspiracy nonsense is just that: nonsense. While I guess I see the fun in it, anyone who takes it seriously is either the liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh (i.e., so obsessed with smearing one's political opponents that it doesn't matter what the basis of the attack is) or or simply a moron.

There's also a Moondog music festival this weekend in NYC:

http://www.moondogrising.com

Clearly if my ears resonated at 8khz I'd be able to better hear sounds over 20khz. Among other reasons.

"...an abrupt fall in the dollar could either be triggered by, or itself trigger, a loss of confidence in dollar assets..."

Um, isn't that kind of circular? "The price going down could either be triggered by, or itself trigger, people believing it's less valuable." Duh.

If he's only running in SC, couldn't Comedy Central just block out the Colbert Report in SC?

Larry Lessig used to do a spectacular Keynote presentation showing the origins of Steamboat Willie in Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill character.

I wonder if he has a copy of the presentation sitting around the web somewhere?

...has to write fast....because online access is prohibitively expensive.

Umm... Why not just write offline and then cut and paste the text into the blog? Should take less than 5 minutes of actual online time to log in, paste and publish.

It's not really a business, more of an art exhibit. Prior to the DRV-IN, Grand Opening operated a ping pong "parlor" in the same space consisting of exactly one table:

http://racked.com/archives/2007/03/28/les_ping_pong_parlor_opens.php

I don't understand #10, but Tian is right on with #8. I'd translate #9 as "You're really a man?"

The original post (http://blogs.24.com/ViewComments.aspx?mid=200a91ba-b3d4-40b2-b829-222dabc0cbb5&blogid=757ebc7c-22f2-4894-8bf7-ff449f941fdb) has a "Silk Street" logo (presumably from the Beijing market). But I'm a little confused, because the characters are traditional (as opposed to simplified) characters, which are rarely used in Mainland China. Is there a Silk Street in Taiwan?

Altered? It looks like an LED sign to me.

I don't see what any of this has to do with Miss South Carolina, when it was Miss South Carolina Teen USA (i.e., the Donald Trump sponsored pageant, not the old-timey Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce sponsored one) who said the stupid stuff.